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That sounds suspiciously marxist to me……..“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”.
And Jeremy, Len, Diane, Jenny, and the other union bosses naturally deciding everyone's needs, and receiving a bigger house and car as reward for their strains in that regard. What could possibly go right...
Maybe that's the difference, tory dishonesty being orders of magnitude larger in scale simply doesn't register with normal people.
Jenny, and the other union bosses naturally deciding everyone’s needs, and receiving a bigger house and car as reward for their strains in that regard.
Is there any chance that you could expand on that please because I have no idea what you are referring to?
And I haven't got the foggiest idea who Jenny is.
Wow.. ok..
Oh yeah tax the hard working shall we and let those who can’t be arsed sit on their arses? I see no problem with a tax increase if it works but it must be fair. Fair means we pay the same as the next chap. So if some bod pays 40% so should everyone else. Your income shouldn’t be the deciding factor. Immoral.
Morally speaking of course this doesn’t work does it? After all the so called wealthy usually take less from society so should pay less if we are being truly fair.
The reason so many countries do what's called progressive taxation is that there is a basic minimum amount of money required to live. Let's say the minimum survivable wage is £100 a week (it's not in real life of course). If someone only makes £100 a week, then they are just scraping by. Taking 10% of that money means they are on £90 a week and that's just not enough. If however someone makes £1000 a week, that's plenty of money. But crucially, if you take 10% from them they still have tons of money, nine times the basic living cost. So how about you let the poor person keep their £10 and the rich person pays £110. Rich person barely notices, but the poor person can now make ends meet; and the government gets the same revenue to spend on services. Even in the UK that's how income tax works.
If socialism worked it would be wonderful but it just doesn’t. It is against human nature.
Communism doens't work, no. But social democracies do. When they do surveys to find the happiest countries (which to me means the ones that work best) social democracies are usually at the top. So yeah, it does work. And ultimately your argument is 'we have to continue being bastards because we're bastards'. That's nonsensical really. There are many historical examples where people were made to stop being greedy and act for the greater good, and ultimately everyone realises it was a good thing after all. The US even had a war along those lines.
Oh, and acting altruistically is NOT against human nature, not at all. If you put people in small groups, then they help each other very nicely, because everyone's 'one of us'. We 'look after our own' quite well. The problem occurs when people view others as 'one of them', because we don't want to help 'them', they are funny and not right. The problem is that it's very easy to convince any group that members of some other group are 'them' rather than 'us'. It could be the people from the next town, it could be Eastern Europeans, blacks, gays, southerners, northerners, the English etc etc. And because we all belong to many groups, it's easy to get people hating each other. But you can unite people by creating a stronger group of 'them'. This is what happened during WWII, of course - most of the country was strongly united against the Nazis, and it's absolutely not a coincidence that the postwar government was social democratic and created so much of what we value today. If we hadn't had that, then we would not have the NHS and we'd all be worrying about wether or not we could afford to go to hospital and pay the excess, or wondering how the hell we were going to afford insulin to stay alive etc etc etc.
I don’t believe fairness means treating everyone the same because everyone’s needs and abilities are different.
Correct. Here is a cartoon illustrating that point:
And here's another cartoon illustrating my points about Toryism:
Which situation in that picture do you think is best?
Correct. Here is a cartoon illustrating that point:
That's hardly an example of fairness....all three are attempting to watch a sporting event without paying for the privilege.
That’s hardly an example of fairness….all three are attempting to watch a sporting event without paying for the privilege.
Well if you're going to stretch the metaphor, what about all the rich people buying up all the tickets at prices that are hopelessly out of reach for the poor? 🙂
And Jeremy, Len, Diane, Jenny, and the other union bosses naturally deciding everyone’s needs, and receiving a bigger house and car as reward for their strains in that regard. What could possibly go right…
Hot take: Collective bargaining a myth, keep yourself above the poverty line thanks to market forces(tm).
The whole thing needs changing.
Sorry to say but it's not going to happen. The country and its people are now firmly on a path that will most assuredly lead to a Dickensian nightmare. And where it goes from there doesn't really bear thinking about, but its clear from this camp we're heading for dystopia.
we’re heading for dystopia
Heading for? It's already pretty bad, when you consider how things actually could be if we were competently run. And I'm not suggesting that a vote for Starmer would fix everything, although I do think he'd be more competent than Johnson (not hard tbh).
Most people are quite happy with the idea of taxing fat cats or making the mega rich pay their fair share. This has been surveyed in the past I'm fairly sure and shown to be a popular idea. But too many people simply aren't aware of what the Tories really are about. So we end up with a government that doesn't really reflect what people actually want; we get the one that people can be conned into voting for by outright lies and disingenuousness. The liars are the ones who win. So yeah, that's a fair old slice of dystopia right there.
2022=1932="1984"
Every time I find myself think that, it feels like it should be far fetched and just paranoid fiction. But... it feels more and more real with every decision made by those in power.
I sadly think we're sleepwalking into something VERY bad.
But then I felt that way as a teenager in the 80s, and we (kind of) got over that OK with a bit of a slap round the collective face and some collective action.
I do feel that Gen X ought to stop habitually shrugging and actually do something though, and I say that as a stereotypical Gen Xer. Boomers are mostly the issue, and Millenials have got all the ideas but none of the cultural power. We need to step up?
I guess that's another way of asking if the current relationship between voting tory and being old is a characteristic of that particular generation, or is intrinsic to simply getting older.
I think (and hope) it's generational rather than a result of just getting older. Drifting towards my mid-50s now, and can not currently ever contemplate voting Tory. If anything, my views are getting more radical and disruptive as I disgracefully age.
'Human nature' is always quoted when someone is bereft of arguments and evidence, it is anthropological idiocy. If such a thing existed, all societies currently and in history would be the same.
I think (and hope) it’s generational rather than a result of just getting older. Drifting towards my mid-50s now, and can not currently ever contemplate voting Tory. If anything, my views are getting more radical and disruptive as I disgracefully age
Me too - brought up Tory, increasingly drifting to the left as my experience and world view has been broadened.
Me three! Moving further and further to the left as I get older (61 3/4).
We really need to bring people’s wages up to at least the level where they no longer need a government issued top up. It’s bonkers that the public have to subsidise people’s wages who work for companies that make huge profits. Make the companies pay fair wages, so what if their profits are hit.
Yep there was a report on this which was interesting reading as the gov are effectively subsidising the payroll of the large companies.
Why pay good wages when the gov subsidise you.
I may have had Tory leanings as a cub,but I just don’t think the Tory of today is anything like the Tory of yesteryear.
I suppose my question is that if we are tending to drift to the left and am indicative of a larger number(humour me) of people as we get older and allegedly(humour me more) the core support is currently daily mail reading pensioners that unless they start grooming the young they are in a world of pain.
I suppose the issue is to point their failings/corruption self serving tendency in a way that catches peoples interest, just moaning about them 24/7 seems to actually work in their favour.
that unless they start grooming the young they are in a world of pain.
Eldest is at Cambridge, and although generally left/liberal leaning as an institution, the Tory Youth sound a truly hideous group. One of his mates is connected to it, though backed Rory Stewart, so presumably a more moderate utter nutter.
And now we have the new that Patel used a Ministerial direction on the Rwanda decision. E.g. she dictated it would happen ignoring other concerns raised by civil services.
A true dictatorship right in front of our eyes funded by taxes raised from your wages.
Jenny, and the other union bosses naturally deciding everyone’s needs, and receiving a bigger house and car as reward for their strains in that regard.
Is there any chance that you could expand on that please because I have no idea what you are referring to?
And I haven’t got the foggiest idea who Jenny is.
Jenny Formby was general secretary of Labour Party, and a senior in Unite. She was mates with Jeremy and had a kid with Len. Len was the one who did the dodgy housing deals with Unite's money while running it, spent £100m on a £27m hotel, was mates with Jeremy and Jenny from back in the day. Diane was mates with all of them and dated Jeremy back in the day, she's never done much else.
As we agreed above, Labour is just as dodgy and cliquey as the Tories.
And now we have -
THE LABOUR PARTY has been accused of "embarrassing" hypocrisy after former PM Tony Blair's scheme to send asylum seekers to Africa was exposed.
At the time of his premiership Mr Blair reportedly offered Tanzania an extra £4 million in aid if they opened an asylum camp for Somali refugees to have their applications assessed before they made the journey to the UK
Diane was mates with all of them and dated Jeremy back in the day, she’s never done much else.
Apart from consistently being re-elected by her constituents since 1987 ?
I often wonder what it is exactly that people don't like about this successful, black, woman ?
Apart from consistently being re-elected by her constituents since 1987 ?
From the first page of this thread:
If there was an election tomorrow my MP (Tory Desmond Swayne) would get in with the same 60% he has got for the last 20 years. He even won with 50% with Labour getting 14% in 1997!
All just as bad as each other. Safe seats, cronyism, and jobs for mates.
Safe seats, cronyism, and jobs for mates.
You think Dianne Abbot was a mate of the Labour leadership for most of that time ?
All just as bad as each other.
Bad how? Remember the fundamental ideological differences. Labour exists to help people, Tories exist to take help away.
At the time of his premiership Mr Blair reportedly offered Tanzania an extra £4 million in aid if they opened an asylum camp for Somali refugees to have their applications assessed before they made the journey to the UK
That doesn't sound like the same thing as is being proposed now..?
The in work benefits state has always been about subsidising business so it doesn’t have to pay decent wages. It was never about anything else. Just like the tax system once you get properly rich tax in the U.K. become optional because it’s very easy to avoid
That doesn’t sound like the same thing as is being proposed now..?
I didn't remember it so I did a bit of googling and you're right, it's not the same at all but that's not going to matter as the story is just put out there to muddy the waters and give Tory supporters something to throw back at critics.
That's because it is not the same thing as being proposed now. Tanzania is next to Somalia isn't it, so the refugees would cross the border and then be assessed whether than can then claim asylum in UK. Makes sense.
Yep there was a report on this which was interesting reading as the gov are effectively subsidising the payroll of the large companies.
Isn't that what furlough did? Worked out OK for some local business owners near me judging by the size of the new Range Rovers the owners are driving.
Just like the tax system once you get properly rich tax in the U.K. become optional because it’s very easy to avoid
Imagine if we got rid of PAYE and everybody could choose how/if they paid their taxes...
Also, the Tanzania thing was floated, but never actually happened, because it just didn’t add up. Civil servants and politicians alike will be telling the big players in government that this Rwanda plan also doesn’t make sense… but that didn’t stop them announcing it as government policy (when parliament isn’t sitting of course). Let’s hope that once it’s done its media saturation job this policy quietly sinks away, like the turning back boats policy, or the wave machine one, or the UK military manning French beaches one… or any number of “look how tough we are” policies that come and go when the media need help distracting us all from the words and actions of our PM. Hopefully it’s just a policy to get a certain kind of government supporter forgetting about law breaking and the sacrifices others made during the pandemic, and out to the polling booths for the local elections to put a cross next to their Conservative councillor’s name. It might be gone by the winter… but if it works, they might deem it worth the cost to keep it ticking along past the next general election. Hopefully not.
Tanzania is next to Somalia isn’t it, so the refugees would cross the border and then be assessed whether than can then claim asylum in UK.
Kenya may object to that?
But the scheme as proposed was not the same as the current scheme.
After all the so called wealthy usually take less from society so should pay less if we are being truly fair.
I'm not a Tory voter so not defending them, but what would the other parties do any better? Historically, they're all quite rubbish. It's not possible to cater for everyone without some getting annoyed. It's like the whole "light, cheap, strong" debate with wheels. You can't have everything.
The current lot are setting a pretty low bar.
I’m not a Tory voter so not defending them, but what would the other parties do any better?
The welfare state and the NHS do spring to mind, though those were historic introductions, granted.
Recently, not using a pandemic as an excuse to funnel billions of public money directly into the bank accounts of your mates. Or breaking a ton of rules you've introduced, then lying about it for months, then basically claiming that the rules were not that important anyway, despite stating the opposite in daily press conferences at the time.
A little less recently, not gambling the future prosperity of the country in order to try and fix a political rift in the party. And then not actively chucking it away to secure your power base.
By a whole raft of measures, the general populace is in a far worse position than 12 years ago. The Tories have had a chance, the outcome is what we see before us now. Failing public services, rising poverty, driven by a morally bankrupt government acting in their own self interests at all times.
what would the other parties do any better?
When the financial crisis hit and the economy was on the rocks, there were two choices. Cut spending, known as austerity; or increase borrowing to stimulate the economy and get us out of recession faster - essentially borrowing to invest in future growth against the increased tax receipts. The tories persuaded us that we couldn't borrow any more, by drawing parallels with your household economy: you shouldn't spend what you don't have. Dave said "we can't go on like this".
But this is very misleading. Governments don't run like household economies, and borrowing against future growth is how all modern countries are run. Austerity measures have been shown to be much less effective in returning to growth than borrowing to invest. The Tories knew this of course, they were told just as we were told in the media, but they still went ahead with austerity. Because they want a small state, they don't want to fund things. They want us all to be on our own for better or worse. So they bent the truth, manipulated the arguments to get the public to endorse the cuts they wanted to make.
Labour are against austerity.
Who else gets the feeling that this whole sending people to Rwanda business is just a ruse? No actual intention of doing it. A mechanism that they can U-Turn and then blame "leftie-woke types" for kicking up such a fuss, that they had to cancel it.
Then turn on the "leftie-woke types" for allowing the country to be overrun by asylum seekers.
Just a thought, but it's such an abhorrent plan that I can't believe that they ever considered it could actually work.
When I was a nipper, i could see that in the Soviet UnioSoviet Union pop music was banned and the shops were empty. Democracy looked like a no brainer.
We've now had a couple of generations for whom the contrasts between democratic and autocratic systems hasn't been so obvious and as a consequence they don't value or see the benefits that democracy brings.
I read a Simon Jenkins piece the other day. Apparently over 50% of young people in the West have an ambivalence towards democracy. All they really care about is shopping.
This is because no-one is taught anything at all about politics in formal education. This is utterly bonkers.
Yes @seadog101 that's exactly right. It's a stupid unworkable plan that is intended to fail but is designed to stoke the culture wars and fire up gullible xenophobes. I bet both my mother and my father-in-law will think it's a wonderful idea.
This is because no-one is taught anything at all about politics in formal education. This is utterly bonkers.
Could argue that this is entirely intentional as is the defunding of education in general. It doesn't do to have an educated, inquisitive, critically-minded electorate when you're basing your entire policies on jingoistic nationalism, three-word slogans and populist drivel.
I read a Simon Jenkins piece the other day.
Don't, he's just a reactionary old tosser
On a practical level as an ordinary Joe Public...
Keep mentioning 'partygate' wherever and whenever you can.
For example:
Buying beer at the supermarket? Quip to the checkout assistant about whether it would be enough for a No 10 after work lockdown pissup.
Just bring it up as and where possible. Keep the anger simmering and don't let people forget.
This is why all the Rwanda crap has been pushed out like clouds of squid ink. It is to muddy the waters, obscure and distract. Johnson is (rightly) crapping his y-fronts about this.
Love the squid analogy.
When the financial crisis hit and the economy was on the rocks, there were two choices. Cut spending, known as austerity; or increase borrowing to stimulate the economy and get us out of recession faster – essentially borrowing to invest in future growth against the increased tax receipts. The tories persuaded us that we couldn’t borrow any more, by drawing parallels with your household economy: you shouldn’t spend what you don’t have. Dave said “we can’t go on like this”.
Broad strokes you're mostly correct.
The Tories and Labour are both locked in a false interplay of a borrowing narrative. It's holding everything back. The government can spend what it wants when it wants. It's a currency issuer.
But in reality they don't borrow a thing and particularly in the financial crisis Q/E was used buy back bonds with newly created funds.
The order of play is government spends first - there's an over complex mechanism between the treasurey and an account at the BoE called the consolidated fund that allows the newly created money to be passed for spending.
New money is issued. And spent into existence. No money is borrowed at this point and doesn't need to be - the government's bank is after all the BoE.
The mechanism that follows is that the spending is matched by issuing of government bonds. This drains reserves and is a complex process to regulate interest rates and is not essential at all for government to spend.
This is what we call the national debt. (Made up but not limited to NS&I, savings etc). The national debt is a secure place for private money to be becausethe government can always meet its obligations. Your premium bonds etc are 100% safe!
And you're totally correct, there should be no household analogy at all. Pounds are not in limited qauntity.
The trouble with the narrative that governments must borrow is 1) it's false and 2)it puts an unnecessary control on something that limits the capacity of the government to spend. And thus do some good for society.
Labour are not much different to the Tories in this regard; they have their fiscal responsibility noises - and believe a currency issuer needs to borrow to spend. Paradoxically that makes them pro-austerity as this way of running an economy sucks money out of the state naturally. This is the balancing the books lie. Recessions often follow governments that have a surplus, because money has left society by way of taxation or spending cuts.
It's the biggest lie we have in our macroeconomic policy.
The most obvious example is without the government spending during the pandemic we'd be in a so much more difficult place.
They did it because they had to.
We are in a similarly difficult place but the current government doesn't have the pandemic to justify its narrative, so has reverted to laissez faire economics. It's completely self-defeating and is going to blow up big time.
Rone for PM/chancellor!
Even if the tories are voted out in the general election, any incoming party is going to have a devil of a job mopping up the mess the tory **** have created over the last 10 years or so. And chances are they probably wont be able to, so will no doubt be blamed. Which probably means any replacement party will only be in power for one government before its returned to the tories again.
Nuclear war with Russia is probably more preferable than getting the tories for another government. Damage might be slightly less.
Who else gets the feeling that this whole sending people to Rwanda business is just a ruse? No actual intention of doing it. A mechanism that they can U-Turn and then blame “leftie-woke types” for kicking up such a fuss, that they had to cancel it.
Then turn on the “leftie-woke types” for allowing the country to be overrun by asylum seekers.
Blatantly obvious from the moment it was announced. Keeps the racist gammons on-side for the upcoming elections then they can let it fall apart during the next few years ready to blame the lefties for its failure and drum up support in time for the general election. All we can hope is that Partygate overtakes it and does them over.
Nuclear war with Russia is probably more preferable than getting the tories for another government.
Damage might be slightly less.predictable
The issue is one just affects us, the other everyone else too.
Isn't this often the way? Conservative/Capitalist govt stretch the economy to breaking point while siphoning off as much money as possible to friends, donors and supporters. Then a socialist govt have to come in and put things right.
This is because no-one is taught anything at all about politics in formal education. This is utterly bonkers.
Apparently* not true of public schools. The young Jorises of this world are taught they are the chosen few and how to play the rigged system.
*paraphrased for effect from ‘Sad Little Men – Private Schools and the Ruin of England’ by Richard Beard.
.
Then a socialist govt have to come in and put things right.
Yep this amazing panacea of free-market capitalism cannot survive without the state propping it up. Where else does the money come from? (You can suggest commercial banks but they operate under license from the BoE and there is private debt for a every loan made.)
We have been sold the biggest lie of a lifetime all because people like to blame socialism for when neoliberalism fails.
I can see a few paths:
1) neoliberalism keeps getting the propped up treatment with a steady but downward trajectory with bumps of Tory cookies that never materialise. Tories still take the next election.
2) Labour take power and offer some redistributive policies that liberals think is the best thing since sliced Blair. But ultimately fails under the weight of the current tax and spend charade.
3) Some large event (house market collapse, pandemic again, war, climate) causes a full on turning point in the economic model - just so we can survive again. (However there's just as likely a return to the status-quo because we just don't seem to be good at making change for the better. When it's on the table Liberal blue tickers join the Tories.)
This is why I'm so frustrated at centrists because they support all the terrible attributes of neoliberalism under the logic if you just do it well it will be okay. This would be the line of John Major's lot.
There's also confusion about what the centre ground is politically. The centre ground is actually a nasty place that protects the establishment which we know doesn't really support those on the breadline. And ultimately still concentrates wealth.
I just can't see a way out currently.
Until we start spending on a massive scale and get some of this green stuff properly done, and start employing with the state to make it happen.
Tories will just pass it to the private sector to suck the blood out of it.
I'm sure this action is more to do with electioneering and the probable re-emergence of faarange and his far right ideologies. Tory HQ can't afford to lose that legions of tory voters that are likely to give their vote to the arch-grifter faarange. The announcement is also helpful to Bozza and his tory chums as it helps deflect away some of the criticism the hateful tories are getting at the moment.
Bad how? Remember the fundamental ideological differences. Labour exists to help people, Tories exist to take help away.
Sure, I agree with that. But when I said they were as bad as each other I meant in different ways. What I remember mostly from the Labour years. Apart from the wars of course, was a kind of creeping insidious authoritarianism. There seemed to be a LOT of police about, a lot of power given to bureaucrats, car clamping, the rise of CCTV etc... and just before they got kicked out, an attempt to bring in mandatory ID cards.
I imagine if they were still in power, rather than sending immigrants to Rwanda, we'd be sending confused pensioners off to re-education camps in North Korea for wrongthink or muddling up their pronouns.
This isn't knocking Labour and supporting the Conservatives btw. I dislike them both equally.
And you’re totally correct, there should be no household analogy at all. Pounds are not in limited qauntity.
It probably predates Thatcher, but the promotion of the "household budget" analogy for the national economy, which she championed, has been the greatest Tory con of all time.
Saying "money doesn't grow on trees" when it was literally made of ****ing paper. And yet people lapped it up.
(Doesn't even need to be printed, of course, there is far more money than the value of printed notes.)
I imagine if they were still in power, rather than sending immigrants to Rwanda, we’d be sending confused pensioners off to re-education camps in North Korea for wrongthink or muddling up their pronouns.
I know, you can’t say anything these days, except you can, and if it offends someone they can say so, but that isn’t the same as what you have made up.
The Tories are trying to bring in a requirement for photo ID to vote to prevent voting fraud (which are very rarely) the only difference is that they aren’t providing any, you need to get your own as this means the young and the poor will be disproportionately disenfranchised which bolsters their vote.
FWIW I was against the Labour plan but there is no sort of equivalence with what we have now. I also voted when Corbyn was leader, not because I was a fan of his (I’m not) but because I was confident that the establishment would tend to moderate his more extreme plans, whereas the trouble with the Conservatives is that they are so deeply intertwined with the establishment that they can play it to deliver what they want, namely state funds to themselves and their mates.
False equivalency work for the Tories I will always argue it, they are definitely not the same.
"I read a Simon Jenkins piece the other day.
Don’t, he’s just a reactionary old tosser"
I referenced the article not for the author but for the statistical information provided within it.
Fair points made a out civics and politics not only being taught at elite private schools the obvious intention being to keep the populace dumb but for many older members on here, we didn't need to be taught the difference between democracy and autocracy because we could see for ourselves the obvious differences.
The best answer to the question actually asked by the OP is 'Partygate' and not to ignore a single opportunity to remind someone of it.